Originally Posted by
TallWeeds
I stand corrected then. I had the opportunity to fly two of the ex-FedEx Valsan 727s at my previous company. I thought they were not autoland capable with the removal of the autothrottles. They only operated them as Cat 1 birds anyways. I will agree with you that they are some of the most capable 727s ever made. We even added a GPS to them when we picked them out of VCV. The added performance made the job much easier.
Obviously, the systems the carrier maintains has a lot to do with it. I flew at a 727 charter outfit before Fedex. That outfit deactivated any airplanes with auto throttles, auto spoilers, and the APR system on some jets we got from Panam with -17R engines. They didn't want to spend the money maintaining them. Cat II was as low as we could go.
Btw - I took N209FE out to VCV, when we returned it to the leasing company. Really sad to see those jets go.